Living With the Dead: The Hungry Land (Book 3) Read online

  I don't know why the rain has started to drive them off in such numbers, but I'll take it. Any advantage we can get...

  Wednesday, May 4, 2011

  Click

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I've just received a terrible phone call.

  Jamie and his team set out a few hours ago to try and retrieve the mobile cell transmitters they found outside Louisville. They hadn't gotten very close to them on the previous trip due to the horrendous amount of debris around them. Whoever set up the safe zone the transmitters were in, which we assume was military, made sure that there were fortifications galore around them. Jamie knew that to get them out, he'd have to move hundreds of sandbags, portable barriers, vehicles, and dead bodies.

  So this trip he took a team of a dozen with him. Four of those men won't be coming home today. Jamie himself is being rushed back to the compound, having taken some serious damage to one of his legs.

  Apparently, Jamie and five others were attempting to clear away some of the junk piled near the transmitters when one of the men ahead of Jamie moved a body. There was either an unexploded mine beneath it or maybe a grenade whose pin got hung up and yanked out when the body was moved. I don't suppose it really matters now. What does matter is that the explosion killed four of our people instantly, and shredded Jamie's leg. I haven't gotten a follow-up call yet, but from what I was told it's questionable whether Jamie will live long enough to get home and receive medical care.

  I know enough emergency medicine and human physiology to know that when a man's leg has to be tied off with a belt, it usually isn't good news. Whoever I talked to didn't say if the bleeding was arterial. If it is, I don't think any tourniquet will keep him alive long enough to reach us. I don't know...

  The man that called me was the sixth member of Jamie's group. He heard the sharp click of whatever triggering mechanism set off the explosive. The other six men are waiting at with the transmitters for Mason, who left out as soon as word came in about the explosion. Mason is going to help the remaining team search very carefully for mines, grenades, IED's, and anything else that might have been left in place for the zombies that wander around the safe zone.

  I hate to think of how many times we've probably passed right by stuff like this. I know that the scouts have encountered trapped caches before, but you have to wonder how many we've missed for every one that we've found. I can see some soldier, staring out across the safe zone as his brother soldiers and the civilians they were trying to save were overrun. I can imagine the gears clicking in his head as he realizes they'll be no escape this time. That the swarms are too large and fierce. I can't blame him for setting a mine or rigging a grenade. One last trap to make the world poorer a few undead.

  Not just soldiers, either. I can see farmers and businesspeople doing exactly the same, and I can't say I blame them a bit. Seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. It is an understandable thing to do.

  Unless, of course, you think that some living person might need what you no longer have a use for, you being dead. Then setting a trap for unwitting zombies has a new perspective. Maybe it's selfish, or shortsighted. Possibly dumb? Depending on the person setting the trap, it might even be hateful or nihilistic.

  I don't think that was the case here, though. I can't feel anger at anyone for what might have been a simple accident. It's possible that no one set an intentional trap at all. I am angry, just not at a person. Simply at fate, or god, or whatever you want to call it. All of us are pretty tired of the constant flux between good and bad luck. None of us are happy about the terrible shifts in our outlook from day to day. We don't like losing friends and family after such a long struggle. Not to zombies. Not to enemies. Nor to weapons left on the ground.

  It's a bad morning. And no matter what might happen throughout this day, no amount of good will bring back those lost men.

  Thursday, May 5, 2011

  Call It a Discount

  Posted by Josh Guess

  ....because Jamie is now 25% off. By that, I mean Evans cut off his leg.

  I know the above seems heartless and cruel, but Jamie was the one who made that joke. Granted, he was pretty smashed on pain medicine at the time, but I thought I'd share it anyway.

  Working in medicine for so long, I saw more than my fair share of people who had undergone amputation of one limb or another. I had a world war two veteran who had his arm taken off at the elbow by a heavy machine gun. He tied off the stump with his own belt before dragging one of his fellow soldiers back to safety.

  I had an old lady have both her legs removed. I forget why it was needed, but while she had moments of sadness and loss about it, she remained happy and positive for the most part. Though she was in her late eighties, she had a lot of hopes and plans for the future. She was optimistic as hell.

  So given my experience with those who've lost limbs, maybe you understand why I find a lot of hope myself in Jamie cracking wise about losing his leg. Yeah, it's a dark joke. But it's a joke. It's an attempt to make light of something that should be crushing. As far as I'm concerned, it's as good a sign as could be hoped for.

  Of course, Jamie isn't out of the woods yet. There is always the chance for infection or any number of other problems. It was good luck on his part that he knew his blood type and that we have a list of people for matches (and a few type O negative people, which is handy), or there wouldn't be any Jamie to make snarky jokes about. Just a pile of ash and the tears of those who mourned him.

  I've got to go out with my brother shortly to take a look at the work being done on the trench that's slowly being dug around the compound. With so many other problems being dealt with lately, our hope is to at least make the zombies wandering outside the walls less of a threat than they've ever been.

  We can hope.

  Friday, May 6, 2011

  The Helpless

  Posted by Josh Guess

  I've been talking with Jamie this morning, and he seems to be doing fairly well for a man who just lost a leg. He's not on quite so many painkillers, but his mood hasn't shifted dramatically downward. He isn't terribly happy, of course, but he's happy to be alive.

  We had a good long conversation about what will be next for him. Scouting is probably going to be impossible for him at this point, which brought up a topic most of us have strayed away from: what to do with people who can't contribute.

  Let me insert here that Jamie certainly can contribute. The value of a person doesn't lie in the strength of their arm or the speed they can run at. Jamie is clever and thinks around corners. He has both of his hands, so there is plenty for him to do outside of scouting.

  But the larger discussion was a disturbing one. The Fall was hard on the human species in many ways. One of the darker parts of the rising of the zombie plague is that the most helpless were the easiest prey early on. The mentally disabled, the sick, the elderly....all of those groups were hit worse than any other. As awful as it is to say so, that was almost a blessing for the rest of us.

  Damn, this is why it's so hard to talk about it. I'm a practical person, but I'm not heartless. I've taken care of all those groups. At the nursing home, I had all three at once. I loved those people, loved making them smile and letting them know that there was someone who cared for them. I'll just say it, then, because pussyfooting around only makes it worse.

  When The Fall hit, those in most need of protection died first and quickest. This probably allowed some healthier and stronger people to survive, though given the scale of the outbreak I don't see it as a major factor for most survivors. The thing about the deaths of so many of those who needed total care that was beneficial for those of us who survived was that we were spared the choice of whether or not to take them in. To care for them.

  If we had asked ourselves before The Fall about this situation as a hypothetical, the majority answer would have been: Yes, of course we would take in the sick, elderly, and the mentally challenged. A society that refuses to protect those with the great
est need for it isn't a society we want to live in. I mean, what kind of person would turn away those in such desperate need?

  For the most part, we didn't need to think about it. Sure, we talked about how much useful knowledge and wisdom was lost with the older people, but it didn't go much beyond that.

  Talking with Jamie has made me think about the larger, long-term problem. We're a community that prides itself on our fierce dedication to one another. We've killed when we needed to, even preemptively at times. There's a world of difference between killing a person who might kill you and rape your wife and turning away someone who through no fault of their own can't be a productive member of society.

  In the world that was, a person who needed total care or constant supervision had options. They could live in a facility that provided those things. That was due to the abundance of wealth and resources once available. In the here and now, with food becoming such a concern for us, we might be faced with the choice of feeding a mentally retarded person who can never plant a crop or make items of use, and feeding a child. It's something we don't talk about. We don't think about it, either.

  Why am I doing so now? I suppose because Jamie is already chomping at the bit to do something useful, as if recovering from having a limb amputated makes him lazy. I know it's because he wants to feel like he's doing his share. He told me that he feels bad to even be eating right now, because he knows it will be a while before he can do anything to have earned it.

  Is that what we've become? Are we just a system of weights and numbers, or are we human beings? Can we be both? I doubt we could turn away a person in need. We could absorb the cost of a few meals a day for someone who can't provide for themselves. But could we do it for a dozen? Fifty?

  Thinking about it makes me feel like shit. The worst part of it is that it probably won't be an issue for a long time. That doesn't make it any less of a worry for me. When a man injured in the line of duty feels bad about having survived the circumstances that gave him the injury, I have to start questioning how we look at survival.

  I'm not just positing questions, either. In such a circumstance, having to choose between providing for a healthy person or one who couldn't care for themselves, I know what I'd choose. I'd choose the healthy person. I'd feel despair at the need for it, and probably hate myself.

  You can hate yourself for doing the right thing. It's one of the many unique characteristics of being human.

  Saturday, May 7, 2011

  The Trenches

  Posted by Josh Guess

  My brother has been working like a madman for a while now. Between the storm damage to the wall and the houses and digging the trenches, Dave hasn't had a lot of time for the little things in life. Playing with his kids. Spending time with his wife. Sleeping.

  It's the trenches that have me excited. Dave started on the western front of the compound since that was where the tornado did its little shrapnel-bomb thing, but he's been expanding them at a fast pace. It's kind of awesome to look over the walls and see this small, long hill of excavated dirt running in a straight line. I don't know why I like it so much, except that it seems sort of iconic.

  Sounds weird, right? I see the wall and to a large degree the compound itself that way. Something representative of us. Something we built and made strong. The trenches are like that to me; a feature that alters the shape of the land for the betterment of our community that we made. It's just fantastic to me. Then again, I'm a strange person.

  Functionally speaking, the trenches and the raised berm outside of them work like a charm. Zombies, at least the mindless shambling ones, tend to go with the path of least resistance. Climbing a steep hill of dirt, even a small one, is a task most of them don't bother with. Maybe one in five of them will, but we're OK with that. Plus, climbing the hill makes it easier to pick them off with a bow.

  If we don't bother with that, most of them lose their balance and fall into the trench itself. We don't have it filled with all the sharpened stakes we'd like, but it's deep enough to keep them from easily climbing out. Which, again, makes them easier to kill.

  The only real drawback is that since they're not finished, zombies tend to walk around them and funnel to the places where there aren't any dirt hills or holes in the ground. That slows down the process of making more, since kill teams have to spend a lot of time clearing out bunched up groups of zombies.

  All in all it's a pretty good idea that seems to work. Finishing it will be a real effort given the nice weather and resulting high number of undead to deal with.

  I've spent a good chunk of this morning checking out the trenches and talking to Jamie. He's doing a little better this morning. He's even discussing possible ways to construct a prosthetic leg. I don't know how we might accomplish that, but I'm glad to see him thinking ahead.

  His down time has given him a lot of opportunity to think. He's been putting a lot of effort into figuring out a safe way for us to make our idea to mold plastic armor components. I have to admit, I was worried that he might start falling into a dark mood with nothing to do but sit around. I'm really happy to see him keeping active and working on problems.

  Monday, May 9, 2011

  Plagues

  Posted by Josh Guess

  There are many things that plague humanity. Mentally, you can be plagued by depression, hate, doubts or anger. Physically, an entire host of ailments. Socially you can suffer from any number of unlucky recurring situations. More obvious and pertinent to the world today is the zombie plague itself, and the zombies are a plague on us.

  It's an interesting concept, really. The idea of a plague can be anything from an abstract concept to, well, an actual plague. Part of the mental stress we're put under as survivors is the necessity of dealing with a hundred tiny ones every day.

  Now, we've got one more. In a word: potatoes.

  I'm of Irish descent (at least partly), so I've done a little research on Ireland. I've read books about the great famine (usually called the potato famine outside of Ireland itself) and have a decent working knowledge of the blight that caused it. It's an interesting bit of history that has a lot of lessons to teach. One of which is just how awesome potatoes are as a food source that they could basically feed four million Irish. Another being that too much reliance on one staple food is dangerous as hell when things go badly.

  The blight itself isn't as much a worry for us as you might think. Though the disease itself is incredibly difficult to control through chemical and pharmaceutical means, most potatoes for a long time have been bred with a gene that is highly resistant. By using the tubers of a previous crop, you can pretty much propagate them forever safely and without fear of losing most of a crop.

  Very luckily for us, my wife is a stickler for making sure her foodstuffs are strong. Add to that the fair number of farmers that have been growing them for years, and we have a great pool of people who know what to look for in seed potatoes. If I seem to be beating this drum a little hard, then keep this in mind: if not for the fact that Jess bought bag upon bag of seed potatoes when the zombie outbreak happened, it's likely that we would have starved by now.

  So you'll understand that while I'm just as fearful and wary of the walking dead outside our walls as you are, I worry equally about the damn potato bugs that have settled in like uninvited guests to dinner.

  At first there weren't that many. Few enough last year that we could (and had to) kill them one by one. We had people whose whole job was to walk the compound's gardens, squishing them when found. At the farms it wasn't as big an issue, because that was mostly corn and wheat that had already been planted. We just took the food and the land.

  Now that the farms are also growing potatoes, the bugs have started to show up in numbers. Large ones. Enough of them that we're already having problems. There's only so much pesticide, and not enough bodies to police every plant. This is a critical time for the plants we've grown indoors and gotten large enough to sprout foliage. They're small and weak. All that caref
ul time and effort spent growing them in late winter could be lost. More important, the potential food in them could be lost.

  We have many things to fear, and no shortage of lesser concerns. Before The Fall and encountering the reality that the dead walk and consider me a tasty snack, I'd have called you crazy if you said that I would worry about beetles just as much as a hungry corpse.

  Strange days, I know.

  Tuesday, May 10, 2011

  Cookie Cutters

  Posted by Josh Guess

  This morning brought a load of good surprises. The weather is nicer than it has been for days: a perfectly comfortable sixty-five degrees with a slight wind and just the right amount of humidity. The western trench was full of dead zombies, courtesy of an early morning rush by a group of about fifty. The sentries didn't even ring a bell, it was so easy to defend against them. Five men and women picked off every one of them thanks to the brilliant work my brother Dave and Will have done.